The canvases
by neverhappy10
Summary: The painting will tell me all I need to know. AU. Two-shot
1. Chapter 1

Inspired by my big buddy's fic which I'm sure u ALL have read. It's "Coin Laundry"! Except...um, I guess this is kinda more angsty and depressing and from Naomi's pov instead. Oh, and the twitter user hummer_kase, this one's ESPECIALLY for u.

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Prologue

_She painted fervently, furiously, as if the connection of canvas and brush was the only thing keeping her sane. At points she looked livid, other times near tears, and once in a while she would go into a calm trance, the brush moving quickly and easily over the once-white surface in front of her. And so it went for three hours straight, as she poured mind and matter and everything else she had onto that 36-by-38-inch area. By the time she threw the dirty brush to the ground, her hands had cramped up to the point of immobility, but this meant almost nothing to her. All that mattered was that she had finished._

_Without another word, she set the canvas against the wall to dry and climbed into bed, impartial to the paint caked on her clothes and hair. A mere moment passed and she was leadened with sleep, not to wake for several more weeks._

_

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_My best friend in the whole world is in a coma.

No one really knows how it happened. All they know is that she had been painting before it—whatever "It" is—happened. They think it might have been some sort of undetectable poison or something, so I'm not allowed to enter her room until the police find substantial evidence. Which means I won't be able to see what she painted.

I know what you're thinking—what kind of friend am I? All I care about is some dumb painting? But that's not how it is. This would be the first painting she's done in over a year, when we grew together and grew apart and everything changed for the better or worse. For some odd reason, I feel like I have to see the it—that if I do, I'll be able to understand why she won't wake up. I feel like the picture's more important than fingerprints and DNA samples.

The painting will tell me everything I need to know.

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Should I continue?


	2. Chapter 2

Guys, I said this is like "Coin Laundry" but only because painting is a bigggg part in this. It's quite different from what I had originally had in mind though, haha. I was gonna make this canon but that went outta the window :p

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Em and I have known each other since kindergarten. I remember the first time I saw her, sitting in the front seat of the bus, her sunny yellow dress complimenting her red hair, with her green backpack laying beside her and her matching green lunchbox sitting in the precise center of her lap. That's how she's always been—so perfect and pristine, with everything in its proper place. I was—am—the complete opposite.

I hated her right away. Or, at least I thought I did.

I spent the better part of my elementary school career making fun of "Emily" and all the girls like her, as I wrestled in the dirt and kicked footballs with the guys. They liked me as much as I loved them—AKA not at all. They would blatantly ignore me and I would call them Princesses, and we would live together in anti-amiable harmony.

By the time we got to middle school, all the Princesses had begun to wear makeup and hook up with my best guy friends, and I found myself being forced to spend more and more time with them as the guys started bringing their "girlfriends" to hang out. I remember feeling like I was under constant scrutiny, as these girls watched me tackle their boyfriends to the ground and roll around in the dirt. It was around this time that whispers of "dyke" began to circulate: stupid spiteful rumors to protect the guys from ever being interested in a girl who spent a better part of the summer on top of them. It never bothered me, though; the guys knew better than to listen to the Princesses (at least initially), and I was smart enough to not let it get to me.

_None of you will ever read this, but I can't keep it inside any longer. Keeping things bottled up the way I do is unhealthy—or at least that's what my mom's shrink says, so I guess it must be true. Anyway, it's been growing for a while and I feel like I have to get it out before it's too late_

___I hate you._

___I hate all of you. You're fake and irresponsible and selfish and have no morals, and the more time I spend with you the more I find myself changing into your clone. I hate you because you make me someone that I don't want to be, and yet I find myself unable to break free of your allure. If I did, I wouldn't know where to go. I wouldn't even know who I am anymore, because I've never not identified myself with you. If I was to leave, what would become of me? I would have left the most significant part of myself behind, leaving myself with nothing but the parts that I don't and probably will never understand._

___Not that you'd understand either, though._

___Some friends you are._

It was in eighth grade that Emily and I really met. Tryouts for modified football had rolled around and, in the fashion of a true dyke, I decided to try out. Emily was in the bleachers with her twin Katie and all their friends, watching the guys and cheering on her quarterback boyfriend. Every once in a while she would spare me a glance, but from the field I couldn't really tell if she was smiling or sneering.

I felt really good about myself about midway through "Hell Week," as we call the tryout period. I had finished all of the workouts near the top of the group, and was one of only fifteen people that had yet to pull a muscle, complain of killer cramps, or throw up. I'd been a little slow in showering afterwards, and by the time I left the girls' locker room almost everyone had gone. In fact, the only person I could see was Emily, standing on the topmost bleacher and looking down at the ground. I had to walk under her to get to the bike rack, so I tried to keep to the shadows so as to avoid enduring shouts of "dyke!" as I passed.

I'd gotten past her and nearly cleared out to the parking lot when I heard a voice behind me: "Have you ever wondered what it'd feel like to fly?"

I turned around and looked at her like she'd gone nuts, which I have to admit seemed pretty plausible at the moment. After all, why would Lil Miss Princess willingly start a conversation with me?

But she kept talking as if it wasn't completely out of norm. "Sometimes when it's windy out, I climb out to my roof and hold out my arms and close my eyes, and it feels like I'm flying away. Have you ever done that?"

I stared warily up at her, taking note of her serene half-smile and finding no traces of condescension or insanity. I slowly shook my head no, and before I knew it Lil Miss Princess was suspended in midair, having jumped from the 20-foot-high bleachers. I screamed and dove out of the way, barely moving in time as she landed softly on her feet with the grace of a trained ballerina.

"You should try it sometime. Life's only ever fun when you're flying." And with that she walked away, whistling a happy little melody perfectly in tune.

_I'm supposed to be a Pisces, which is a fish or something, which means I should like water, right? But the funny thing is, water scares the living shit out of me. The thought of drowning is too frightening to allow me to enjoy any interaction of water whatsoever, save for taking a quick shower or mixing my paints. Other than that, I hate water. I'd much rather be flying, soaring like the wind's playful melody and dancing on the rooftops of strangers like Santa's reindeer. Sometimes I imagine myself sprouting wings like an angel and flying far, far away from here, going someplace where nobody knows my name and I have no expectations weighing down my shoulders. But I'm not pure enough to be an angel, so chances are I'll be stuck in this hell for the rest of my goddamned life._

The next day after practice, I purposely delayed myself in the locker room. When I left, Emily was standing outside the door waiting for me. "Hey, Naoms," she said with a vibrant smile.

"…Is that supposed to be a compliment, Ems?" I asked, cocking a cautious eyebrow.

"I have no idea." She grinned again and put her arm around me. And just like that, the Princess and the Dyke were friends.

It's not like all of a sudden she abandoned her fellow Princesses and became my Siamese twin or anything. No, it was more like she started being more civil to me, smiling when I looked her way and talking to me sometimes when there weren't many people around. Once in a while she would stay after in the school library with me and help me with my atrocious math and science skills, because she was one of those girls who excelled in everything—and her near-perfect average reflected that. She wouldn't defend me if the Princesses started calling me Dyke, though, and under no circumstances would she ever share anything intimate with me.

One day, about a month into the football season, Emily ran up to me as I was on my way to practice. "I want you to see something," she said jubilantly, pulling on my arm.

"See what?"

"It's at my house. It's really good—my favorite so far. So if you don't come with me I'll be devastated beyond belief and you'll have to live with my suicide on your conscience for the rest of your life."

This was what I liked about Emily. Even though she was a Princess, she had more to offer to the world than pretty hair and perfect clothes. She had wit and a decent sense of humor, and she wasn't afraid to say something stupid—at least, not to me. And, seeing no other option, I let her drag me off the school grounds and lead me to a quaint little house about a half-mile away from where I lived. We entered through the open garage, surprisingly no one was home. "My parents are both away on business and Katie's probably out fucking some random guy," She said with a chuckle.

I was surprised to see that her room wasn't huge and pink with a ginormous walk-in closet, the way I'd imagined. It was modest, with a mahogany dresser across from the window and simple white sheets across the bed. Leaning against the wall was a large canvas covered by a ghost-white sheet. It was this that she led me to, picking it up gingerly and placing it on her bed.

"Here it is," she whispered almost lovingly, stroking the white-sheathed corner. I looked at her curiously, unsure of the significance of a large cloth-covered square, but because I knew this meant a lot to her I let her stroke the corner for as long as she desired.

Eventually she decided to pull the cover off, and I came face-to-face with what still remains my favorite painting of hers. It was a room filled with shadows and Wild Things and silhouettes of vaguely-familiar people, and in one corner of the room sat a fragile-looking rag doll, the only source of color in the whole painting, leaning dangerously to one side with a painful-looking smile stitched on its face. It was strange, somewhat disconcerting, and absolutely beautiful.

"…You paint?"

It had to have been the single lamest thing for me to say, but thankfully Emily just laughed and sat on her bed. "Yeah, I do. It's pretty much the only thing I'm good at, but no one really understands what it means to me. Katie thinks it's kinda weird, especially when I do stuff like this, so I don't show them anything anymore. What do you think?"

"Well, it's really good. Kinda scary and a little left of center, but good nonetheless. I mean, where do you get inspiration for something like this?" I placed my finger on the little rag doll, feeling both intrigued and disgusted by its brightness.

"Don't you get it?" She stood up and walked to the dresser, staring at herself in the mirror. "That little doll is me Naoms."

_It's hard when you're the only person that seems to be unsure of their place in life. Sometimes I want to curl up in an abyss and cry until my tears run out, then cry some more until I shrivel up and die of dehydration. It's gruesome and crazy and sometimes it scares me, but I feel like because I don't have a definite place here, I can't be happy until I'm gone—and there's no place for me to go, so the only escape would be death, right?_

_

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TBC..._  
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End file.
